by A. J. Downey
I searched her skeptical expression and told the truth.
“You’ve been through it,” I said, and her face drew down, closing off. “I think it’s time someone helped you out some,” I said.
“I can pay,” she said, and it held an edge. She turned, her back stiff, pride radiating off her, swirling around her in a shroud of independence. That was hot, too.
“Never said you couldn’t,” I said. “I just said I wouldn’t charge you.”
She turned again, scowling slightly and I grinned. She couldn’t hold it, and she giggled softly at me.
“We’ll figure it out?” she asked, and I nodded.
“Sounds good. Just get what you can for now. My number’s at the bottom of the second page. Call me when you’ve got some stuff for me, and I’ll work out a time with you to come by.”
“Sounds good,” she agreed.
“Okay.” I gave a nod. “Have a good night.”
“Thanks,” she said. “You, too.”
I lightly punched the doorjamb a couple times and with one last lingering look at the smooth line of her neck and how it swept into her shoulder and down her back like a work of fucking art, I left.
My phone buzzed twice about ten minutes later and when I checked, it was a text from an unknown number.
Is there a hardware store you prefer, one over the other?
A second later another text came through.
It’s Cadence, by the way. Sorry.
I grinned and waited until I was stopped at a light to text back. I shot her the name of the hardware place I knew was closest to her, the cross streets, and an assurance they should have everything she needed.
Thanks, we’ll go tonight.
I grinned like a fuckin’ moron.
That honestly suited me just fine. The sooner I could come back and get to know more about her, the better.
9
Cadence…
I sighed in frustration and rested my forehead against the cool stainless steel of the way-too-fancy refrigerator that had come with the house. Of course, the water wasn’t hooked up. Why would it be? Just like the dishwasher wasn’t properly anchored, though I suppose I should be grateful it didn’t leak, and it at least seemed to be properly hooked up – it worked and worked well – even if it was just for cheap dollar-store dishes that Marc and I had bought until our stuff arrived.
“You okay, Mom?” he asked.
“What? Yeah, honey. I’m fine.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Fridge doesn’t work for water or ice. It’s no big deal, just have to figure out how to hook it up.”
“Want me to YouTube it?” he asked eagerly, and I had to smile. I swear it was this kid’s answer for everything, and nine times out of ten, it was miraculous the way the how-to videos laid everything out – but then again…
“With what tools, baby?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah…” He looked sheepish.
“They’re with the movers,” we said in unison and had to laugh, or I think I might cry.
That was pretty much the answer for ‘Mom, where’s insert random object?’
“Well, that sucks,” he said, and I nodded. “Do we even have everything to make it work?” he asked, and I shrugged, shaking my head with a heavy sigh.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Back to the hardware store?” he asked, and I nodded.
“Yup.”
“What time is Jared supposed to get here?”
I sighed and asked, “What time is it?”
He looked at his phone.
“Ten o’clock.”
“Shit,” I said. “Any minute, now.”
“Whoa, you better get in the shower,” he said.
“What?” I asked, slightly alarmed and he grinned.
“When was the last time you took one?”
I had to think about it. That was problematic. This week had gone by way too fast. Last weekend had been multiple trips to the hardware store to stock the storage unit outside with things that needed to be accomplished, then we’d dove into trying to sort through the things we’d brought with us in the car and trailer – getting it all out of the guest room.
Then, the week had descended upon us with a bit of a vengeance. School, work, meetings for me and sports for Marc. His new school at least had a soccer program, which he absolutely loved and to my surprise, he had enthusiastically wanted to sign up for. His tryout had gone well – which shocked me. I mean, I knew he had played well with his friends back in Georgia, but I had no idea he’d had interest in playing for real through a program or his school.
That had led to a particularly soul-crushing conversation about how Marc hadn’t wanted to bother me… knowing that his father wasn’t around a whole lot, even when he had been alive, to help with anything yet how Ben had expected me to do all the things for him when it came to both my own work and arranging and executing dinner parties and a whole host of other things for him.
It made me angry now that I could look back and see with clarity that the things that I did for him were so that he could spend more time with his other family. It broke my heart, not just for me, but for Marc, in ways I couldn’t describe. It hurt that all of what I did for Ben was also in a vain hope for more than a hurried ‘thanks, babe’ and a peck on the cheek.
God, it was depressing. I was so stupid. How could I have not known?
“Hold down the fort,” I told Marc, not letting on that I was distressed if I could help it. “I’m getting showered, getting dressed, and we’ll do what we can until Jared gets here, then we’ll run to the hardware store.
“We gonna paint?” he asked, perking up.
I sighed. “We’ll see. Depends on if Jared needs us for anything.”
“K.” Marc looked thoughtful, and I smiled.
“Love you, Bub,” I said, drifting toward my bathroom.
“Love you, too, Mom. Save me some hot water.”
Shit. I forgot to mention that to Jared.
“Jared shows up, you tell him about that, would you?”
“Yeah,” he said.
Honestly, who sold a house with a shower that got no hot water to it? Apparently, Hillary McConnel did.
I showered and spent a little longer than I intended to under the hot spray, which was apparent when I heard the door to the bathroom open and Marc called in, “Mom, Jared’s here!”
“Hey!” I heard from a little further out in the hall.
I rolled my eyes and called out, “Hi! Sorry! I’ll be right out, I promise.”
“Take your time,” Jared called. “I’m going to look at the fridge and wait until you’re done to look at Marc’s shower.”
I turned off the water and said, “I’m done! Fire when ready.” I covered my face with my hands and silently groaned at how stupid that must have sounded.
“Sound’s good,” Jared called from the hall. I heard his retreating boot steps across the hardwoods.
“Wow,” Marc muttered and shut the bathroom door.
“Little shit,” I swore softly and pulled my towel off the curtain rod at the other end of the shower where it was safe from the spray.
This bathroom needed towel bars.
So did Marc’s.
And bathroom furniture, like a hamper and maybe one of those cabinets that went over the toilet. It was a bigger bathroom than what we’d had in Georgia, so I actually had to go buy these things. It wasn’t something that was with the frickin’ movers, which don’t even get me started down that road again.
I sighed. The list seemed insurmountable, and somewhere in there, I still had to get laundry done because the washer and dryer I’d purchased?
The dryer was being delivered this week, but the washer? Backordered for over a month, which of course they didn’t tell me until after I’d purchased it.
By that point, I was just too frickin’ tired to argue or try to go somewhere else. I had done all of our laundry before leaving Georgia, including bedding, and t
hat was one of the things we had brought with us – all of our clothes in totes and suitcases. We’d been trying to cut down the number of totes and space in the moving truck, but it’d been futile. I’d still ended up over the space limit and had had to pay the movers over five grand more to get our stuff here. Only to, as you know, find out that they could essentially deliver it whenever they frickin’ wanted to even though they’d said that it’d be here when we arrived.
I sighed and finished toweling off and wrapped the towel around me up under my armpits. I cracked the bathroom door and listened intently for where the boys were in the house before darting past the useless quarter bath between my bathroom and my bedroom. I really needed to do something more useful with that quarter bath, but with everything else wrong with the house at this point, it was quickly becoming a low priority.
Plus, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with it yet. A pantry? A bigger closet? I didn’t know. I shut myself in my room and curled my lip at the air mattress on the floor. I hated it. I had just turned thirty-five, had birthed a thirteen-pound baby – a fact I would never let Marc live down, and I was just feeling plain too old to be sleeping on an air mattress on the floor.
I glared at the bedroom closet that was also sans shelf or closet rod, which none of the closets had shelves or a rod either… who sells a house without those details? Thus, I was still rooting through wrinkled clothes in totes and suitcases, trying to find something suitable for the time being.
I was just pulling a sleeveless, army green tee over my head when a light rap fell on my bedroom door. I stepped to it, the thighs of my wrinkled but crisp fresh jeans swishing against each other in the quiet of my room and opened up my door expecting Marc but finding Jared instead. My cheeks heated in a blush, my hair hanging lank and uncombed around my face and leaving me feeling like a drowned rat.
“Oh, hi,” I said, and he smiled at me, sweeping me from head to foot with those hazel eyes of his sparkling with… I don’t know what, but it seemed delighted.
“Hi,” he said, and I swallowed hard at the pitch and timber of his voice. The single word rich and husky skittered across my sense of hearing like it was sliding seductively across satin sheets.
I swallowed hard and didn’t say anything, the words catching in my throat. His smile widened and he let me off easy by telling me, “Marc’s shower is fixed.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked, perking up a bit. “What was wrong with it?”
“Some damn fool installed the shower handle backwards,” he said. “Had the temperature regulator turned all the way down. Easy fix. Won’t cost you a thing.”
I felt the breath rush out of me in relief and said, “Thank you.”
“That outlet in his bathroom is a bit of a different story,” he said frowning.
“What?” At the look on his face that bordered on anger, I whined a bit. “Nooo, don’t tell me—”
“Yeah, I don’t know what the fuck they were thinking but they’ve got a two-twenty running to that thing.”
“I need an electrician?” I asked meekly.
“Nah, not necessarily,” he said, rubbing the pad of his thumb against his full bottom lip, an unconscious gesture that had me pressing my thighs together just a little bit tighter.
“What do I do then?” I asked.
“You can get an adapter online. I’ll show you what to get. They’re not too bad, in the thirty-to-fifty-dollar range. That’ll do yah until you decide to either hire an electrician, or you know, you can just deal with the adapter.”
“It’s not a fire hazard?” I asked.
“Not with the adapter, no. It’s too much power and could spark or cause a fire if you plug anything into it without one, though.”
“Okay, what’s the other bad news?” I asked, rolling my eyes and he laughed.
“No other bad news, just need an adapter and a long enough hose for the fridge. That’s easy enough. If I have the parts, I can do it. No plumber required.”
I leaned against the doorjamb and nodded, lost in thought for the moment. Jared just stood there patiently. I looked up at him and his expression was kind.
“What else do I need?” I asked, finally. “From the hardware store. I can go get it.”
He held up a piece of paper and said, “Got it all written down for you right here.”
“Okay,” I said, plucking the page from between his fingers.
“Go team,” he said and held out a fist. I laughed and bumped it with my own.
He retreated down the hall. I sighed and called out, “Marc! You ready to go?”
We worked all day. As soon as I got back from the hardware store, Marc and I were given the go-ahead to paint the living room walls. Jared worked on things while we were gone, and the fridge once we had returned.
I breathed a sigh of relief when the shouting and general cursing ceased from the kitchen with a triumphant, “There we go! Now, that’s what I’m talkin’ about!”
Marc turned from the wall he was painting a wholesome vanilla and I faced him from the accent wall I was painting a soothing, light minty green around the fireplace, and we grinned at each other.
“Sounds like someone’s victorious,” I called out.
“You know it, baby!” Jared crowed from the kitchen, and I raised an eyebrow and felt myself flush vermillion at the endearment while Marc pointed and laughed at me mercilessly.
I rolled my eyes at my teenage son and turned back to my wall, smoothing paint over the drab gray with the roller.
I only wished erasing my sadness were so easy.
Dinner was a quick affair of ordered food, and I took a minute to leave the boys, laughing and talking at the six-foot folding table that served as our dining room table, taking my beer out the front door to lean on the front porch railing and just take a minute for myself.
I breathed out, the twilight settling in, darkness creeping sleepily out from between the houses and trees, out from under cars as the light began to fail and I let some of the tension from the day go.
“You okay?”
I startled and turned to where Jared leaned out the open doorway, hand gripping the frame stretching, his own bottle in a relaxed grip of his dangling hand.
God, he made everything look so nonchalant and easy… sexy, too… but I needed to not think about that last. I mean, I was sure he had to have a girlfriend. He was too nice and smokin’ hot not to.
“Yeah, yeah.” I harrumphed a chuckle and felt my lips quirk in a sort of smile. “I’m fine,” I lied and thought to myself as I took a quick pull from the neck of my own bottle, if fine means fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional, then yeah, I’m just fuckin’ peachy.
“You can’t lie to me,” he said, and his voice had dropped, pitching low, the timber of it,,, I don’t know. It was kind, warm, welcoming, and inviting.
I swallowed my mouthful of crisp beer around a sudden lump in my throat.
“You don’t mind me saying…” he said, and I looked up and over at him, his expression slightly unsure and waiting for the invitation to complete his thought.
“Go on,” I said, curiosity getting the better of me.
“You need to relax,” he said and stepped out onto the porch, letting go of the doorframe and walking the few scant steps to join me at the railing.
I laughed a little and it sounded slightly bitter – a bitterness I tried to cover up by innocently asking, “And how do you propose I do that?”
He knocked his shoulder into mine and said, “I don’t know, get laid or something.”
I snorted and laughed, looking at him skeptically. “And are you offering your services to that effect?” I asked, quailing a little on the inside at either answer he was about to give me – yes or no – both seemed to have anxieties attached to them.
He shrugged, trying to hide his pleased look. Playing it cool, he said, “It probably wouldn’t take much persuading.”
“Oh, my God,” I uttered and blushing so bright I thought I might become a bug za
pper, I leaned my forearms against the railing and rocked back and forth on my feet.
“Hope I’m not making you uncomfortable,” he said and cleared his throat. I shook my head, kind of speechless.
“No,” I said. “Trust me, it’s not you, it’s me…”
He nodded slowly and we lapsed into silence for a time before he said, “Look, no pressure, but I’d really like to take you out and get to know you a little better.”
“Yeah?” I asked, hardly able to believe my ears. He straightened and turned to me, leaning a hip against the railing. He looked at me, his eyes narrowing slightly.
“Why do I get the feeling you don’t think very highly of yourself?” he asked, and I straightened and mirrored his stance, leaning a hip against the railing and raising an eyebrow. I took a pull off of my beer with a little shrug.
Truth be told, his question hit a little close to home. I didn’t think very highly of myself. Why should I, after everything?
He looked me over and the sincerity in his eyes, on his face, kind of stole my breath. He gave a little nod as though he’d made his mind up about something and an almost determination steeled his gaze.
“Alright,” he said.
I frowned slightly, a bit jittery, and asked, “Alright what?”
“Well, as you know, I’m pretty good at building things,” he said. I nodded carefully, unsure where he was going with this. “You lay the designs and the rules and let’s do this,” he said, sweeping out an arm.
“Do what?” I asked, brow furrowing in confusion.
“Rebuild that broken self-esteem of yours.”
I felt my eyes widen. He raised an eyebrow and patiently waited me out to say something – anything. The problem was, what exactly did you fucking say to something like that? Holy shit!
“I don’t know what to say,” I finally admitted softly, and he lightly took my hand that was hanging by my side, lining his palm to the back of my hand and curling his fingers between mine. I stared down at our hands and swallowed hard, suddenly scared – but not of him. No, I was scared of me and of the potential of opening up the Pandora’s box of pain I had buried deep inside of me.
“Say ‘yes,’” he said with a little shrug. “Say you’ll let me take you out and show you some things.”